Covid-19 & Women - The Weekly Update 👌

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Covid-19 & Women: your weekly update

March 1-5 2021

Dear Subscribers,

We hope you are safe and well. This is our weekly newsletter, bringing you the latest on gender, the economy and Covid-19. In 2021, we hope to continue bringing you relevant news on the gendered effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. If you like what we are bringing you, forward this email to a friend or two so they can sign up here.

Before we get stuck in, we have exciting news to share with you. At the Women's Budget Group, we started 2021 with the launch of new projects:

Feminist Green New Deal

The Feminist Green New Deal project is in collaboration with the Women’s Environmental Network. Over 2 years, the project will seek to build support for an intersectional feminist green new deal in the UK; engaging environmental, women’s, racial and social justice organisations.

We are commissioning a series of policy papers to inform the discussion on how to ensure that gender equality is at the core of the plans to decarbonise the UK economy.

We are currently looking for a paid consultant to write a policy paper with a focus on transport in a zero-carbon economy that is inclusive, accessible and designed with the needs of women in mind. Find out more here.

International Training and Partnerships

We are working on developing a collaborative training programme to build the capacity of civil society organisations around the world to analyse economic policy from a gendered perspective, engage with governments and promote a positive vision for a gender-equal economy. We are still in the very early stages, so watch this space for more details to follow!

If you think this would be an interesting opportunity for you or anyone you know, please feel free to get in touch with Hana at hana.abid@wbg.org.uk

If you would like us to include any news, publications, research projects or events in this newsletter, please reply to this email!

Keep reading for more news on the gendered and economic impacts of the pandemic in the UK and beyond. Scroll down to the bottom to catch upcoming events on gender, the economy and Covid-19.

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to stay in touch!

The Women's Budget Group on Covid-19

WBG responds to the Spring 2021 Budget announcements
We published our initial response to the Chancellor's Spring Budget announcement. We see the budget as a missed opportunity to rebuild the economy so that it works for everyone and builds resilience into the future.

Spring Budget 2021 Pre-Budget Briefings
Prior to the Spring Budget announcement on Wednesday, we published a set of briefings which set out the gender impact of coronavirus on different groups of women and policies.

Post-pandemic childcare
We signed this joint letter with a number of other organisations, calling on the Government to directly fund nurseries and guarantee provision for all disadvantaged children.

Spring Webinar Series: Inequalities and Covid-19
We are are hosting a series of lunchtime webinars exploring different issues in the context of Covid. Our next event 'Tax Justice, Gender Justice' is scheduled to take place on Friday 19th March at 1pm-2pm. Register here . Recordings of our previous webinars are available on our website.

"COVID-19 in the UK: where are all the women?"
Our Director Mary-Ann Stephenson took part in this online discussion with Mandu Reid, Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Dr Clare Wenham as part of the LSE Festival on shaping the post covid world.

Find everything the Women's Budget Group has done on Covid-19 here. This includes our reports on the impact that Covid-19 has on Social Security and Social Care, as well as joint letters, policy responses, and more.

Find it all here

Covid-19: the latest

Tax and recovery: Beyond the binary
The Institute for Public Policy Research published a briefing which shows that reforming and raising certain taxes now could ensure the recovery is more balanced, more sustainable and prevents inequality from escalating further.

Tax after Coronavirus report
The House of Commons Treasury Committee’s Tax after Coronavirus report was published following a seven month inquiry by the committee into what the tax system should look like following the reconstruction of the economy.

Extending furlough beyond April will protect up to 2.7 million jobs that would otherwise have been at risk.
Briefing from New Economics Foundation detailing how new modelling shows that between 2 and 3 million jobs would have been at risk of redundancy, loss of pay or a loss of hours if the furlough scheme had not been extended.

Women in Work Index 2021
PWC published their Women in Work Index, which finds that even at double the rate of historical progress, the OECD will not catch up to its pre-pandemic equality growth path until 2030

Hidden Abodes in Plain Sight: the Social Reproduction of Households and Labor in the COVID-19 Pandemic
Journal article published in Feminist Economics uses a a feminist social reproduction approach to reveal the COVID-19 crisis as a crisis of work.

Gender, health, and inequalities before and after the pandemic: Where we go from here
While the COVID-19 pandemic has threatened everyone’s health, its impact has been different for men and women, reflecting underlying gender inequalities. A new EuroHealthNet Policy Précis examines the links between gender, health, and inequalities during the pandemic and before.

This Budget does nothing to help women at the sharp end of the pandemic
Article in the Big Issue written by our Communications Officer Thaira Mhearban on how despite women being at the forefront of the fight against the virus, this budget lets them down once again.

Women Have Been Hit Harder By Covid. Now This Budget Forgets Them Altogether
Article in Huffpost, written by our current intern, Ebyan Abdirahman, on how from jobs to welfare to childcare and domestic violence shelter funding, we desperately needed a Budget to help out women. This wasn't it.

Budget 2021: £19m support for domestic violence victims announced by Rishi Sunak
Article in iNews on how campaign groups have said the new funding is not nearly enough to cope with rising demand for services.

Women's work and the impact of the pandemic
Article in Holyrood on why the Government’s decision not to exempt maternity leave from calculations for the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme is only one way in which the pandemic has disproportionately impacted women.

‘Mothers are livid. We’ve had enough!’ The pregnant women being forced out of the workplace
Article in the Guardian about Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, who says the pandemic has caused a surge of discrimination against pregnant women and mothers at work.

“Our voices aren’t being heard”: why we need a pandemic exit strategy that works for all women
Article in Stylist magazine mapping out why the Covid-19 pandemic has been a period of acute crisis for women.

One in five UK schools has set up a food bank in Covid crisis, survey suggests
Article in the Guardian about a survey carried out by Kelloggs showing that a third of teachers who responded say schools have become key providers of support services for families in poverty.

Global Nursing Home Campaign - Survey
UNICARE’s Global Nursing Home Campaign wants to collect information from the frontline care workers in the nursing home and home care sectors worldwide. Please share this survey with any frontline care workers you may know.

Upcoming Events

WHY THE GREEN NEW DEAL MUST BE FEMINIST
Thursday 11 March 2021 | 12:30 – 13:45 GMT
Join WEN and The Women's Budget Group at this free event to celebrate International Women's Day. In the first of a programme of events and workshops, leading up to COP26 Glasgow Climate Talks, we will hear from the authors of the UK Feminist Green New Deal policy paper. This event will be interactive - we want to hear from you!

Advocating for peace during a pandemic: The impact of COVID-19 on WPS implementation in Eastern Europe, South Caucasus, Central Asia and Africa
Tuesday 16 March 2021 | 9am EST | 2pm GMT
A side event during the 65th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women co-organized by the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP), Austrian Development Cooperation, and the Permanent Mission of Austria to the UN

Tax Justice & Gender Justice
Friday 19 March 2021 | 1pm – 2pm GMT
Tax is a key tool that the government has to address this inequality. However, at the moment wealth is very lightly taxed in the UK. This exacerbates inequality, with particular harms for women. This webinar, jointly hosted by the UK Women's Budget Group and Tax Justice UK, will be a discussion chaired by Margaret Hodge MP, with Sue Himmelweit (UK Women's Budget Group), Robert Palmer (Tax Justice UK) and Guppi Bola (Decolonising Economics)

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The Women’s Budget Group scrutinises government policy from a gender perspective. We are a network of leading feminist economists, researchers, policy experts and campaigners committed to achieving a more gender equal future. We have worked towards this since 1989.